The Europa is Northern Ireland's largest and possibly best hotel, although some people have disputed that the latter is no longer the case, with the Hilton now taking away most of the celebrity guests. I stayed in the Europa for ten days in July 2002 when I was managing the Austrian Cricket team at the ECC European Championship, and it provided us with an excellent base for which to prepare for the tournament (and yes if you have read bazza1603's op on the place we were the cricket group mentioned - unfortunately we didn't get to meet up though). The fact it has been bombed several times during the troubles did not perturb me at all when staying here.

The Location is excellent with various bars and restaurants within walking distance, and more importantly for transportation it is very well placed, with a bus station at the back of the hotel that has shuttle services to both the International airport and the City airport. The buses routes run at least twice an hour with single tickets costing £5 and £2.00 respectively (discounted return prices are also available) whereas a cab will cost £22 or £7 approx. each way, so the bus represents quite a saving. The Europa bus centre is also walking distance from Belfast Central Railway station. The hotel is very centrally located with a host of bars and restaurants in the vicinity. During the ten days I was there I ventured to a curry house, a Malaysian restaurant (Istana), a Chinese restaurant (The Wok), a couple of Italian restaurants and also to various drinking establishments, with Robinsons, The Crown and The Beaten Docket all being within spitting distance of the hotel.

There is a somewhat pricey restaurant and a pub/wine bar on the ground floor with normal opening hours in the Europa and also a hotel bar on the first floor. The hotel bar is not too badly priced with a good pint of Guinness available and used to be our meeting point each evening before heading out. There is also 24 hour room service which the rather pleasant young lady next door to me seemed to be enjoying thrice daily (ooh... helllooo!). I only had breakfast in the hotel with a great Irish Fry up or Continental Breakfast buffet service causing an expanded waistline, although the tea and coffee were very weak (but then again I am used to Viennese strength coffee!).

Despite the fact that my room-mate and I had brought a cricket bag, a case and a laptop bag each there was plenty of space in the room. The doors are standard key-card operated affairs, and the beds very comfortable - very welcome if you are playing cricket all day and every day. The rooms have televisions, with pay TV options, telephones (although these are of course very expensive), trouser presses, tea/coffee making facilities, with executive rooms being roomier still, as well as a large wardrobe in every room. There are a selection of singles, twins, doubles and suites (named for example the President Clinton Suite) with the rack prices (official prices) being pretty steep, although trying sites like Hogg Robinson, lastminute.com and so on will help you find some quite affordable rates. We had a special promotional rate which was far lower than any promotional rate, which made it an excellent choice of venue.

Other facilities:

Any niggles: